


This is Love/This is Hell

by breathe_out



Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Hospitalization, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Proxies (Slender Man Mythos), Slenderverse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:01:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22691440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breathe_out/pseuds/breathe_out
Summary: Jay is alive. Tim is an absolute mess. They're both stuck in the ICU as Jay slowly recovers from his gunshot wound. Nearly losing Jay brings all of Tim's feelings to the frontline. But when the hospital staff begins to ask questions and the police get involved, tensions start to rise. And where is Alex?
Relationships: Jay/Timothy "Tim" W.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 44





	1. Chapter 1

Alex’s steely glare captures Jay from across the room. He cannot bring himself to move, even when the gun’s barrel is aimed directly at him. 

“A-Alex?” His name is a mere whisper on his lips. 

A single gunshot bursts through the quiet. 

Then, he’s suddenly dying. 

He stumbles into an adjacent room and somehow manages to shut the door. Alex’s footsteps echo on the other side, but he can’t focus past the agony in his stomach. He slides down the wall with tears welling in his eyes. His breathing turns shallow and rapid as he desperately gasps for air to fill his lungs. Jay claws at his side and places his hand against the wound. The pain makes him lightheaded and dizzy. He blinks back the darkness threatening to overwhelm him. If he faints, he knows that he may never wake up again. 

Jay’s odds of surviving are dwindling by the second. Blood gushes between the gaps in his fingers. However, thoughts of dying subside when he starts thinking of Tim instead. Tim, who he had attacked and threatened and betrayed under the guise of the Operator’s influence. Frustrated tears trek down his cheeks as realization comes over him. Jay will never be able to apologize; he’ll never see his only friend again.

His brain pulses with abrupt, excruciating pain. Jay lifts both of his hands and presses hard against his temples, soaking his hair with blood. His muscles are seizing and aching. He collapses onto the concrete floor as the energy drains from his body. In the farthest corner of the room, Jay catches a glimpse of a black suit before completely losing consciousness.

\--

Meanwhile, Tim is panicking. The noise is as clear as day; a single shot reverberates through the air. He freezes in place, his heart hammering in his chest as his mind races. 

_Jay._

Dread curls in his stomach. He bolts back towards the building, feeling like an utter fool. They should have never separated in the first place. 

Although he’s hurrying, Tim reenters the building with more caution than before. The banister above is where he had seen Alex lurking only minutes ago. It would do no good to run into trouble. He traverses down into the basement, careful to avoid broken glass and splintered wood. The halls seem to be entirely empty, but he still can’t shake the trepidation that’s rising in his chest.

There are imprints in the thick coat of dust covering the floor. Footprints lead further down, and he follows them until something dark glistens from the beam cast by his flashlight. Tim’s heart sinks when he realizes that it’s blood. The droplets are scattered to the entryway of a nearby door. Tim lurches forward and twists the handle. Something heavy is blocking the other side. 

“Jay?” He calls. 

He uses his weight to press the door partly open. Tim squeezes through the gap quickly. His heart sinks when he finally see’s the blockage: it’s a body. Jay is crumpled on the floor in a heap, covered in an alarming amount of blood. Its streaked through his hair and dampening the front of his jacket. There are crimson smears arching over the ground. 

Tim forgets to breathe. “Jay!” He’s kneeling next to him and pulling the unconscious man into his lap. 

Tim gently turns him over and blanches at the sheer amount of red soaking through Jay’s clothes. His face is slack and somewhat peaceful - a stark contrast to his usual anxiety-ridden personality. Carefully, Tim places two fingers against his neck, already fearing the absolute worse. 

A thready, weak pulse beats under Jay’s cool skin. Tim nearly sobs in relief. 

A switch flicks on in his head: he has to get Jay to a hospital as fast as possible. He’s lost too much blood to gamble waiting a moment longer. Alex can go to hell for all he cares.

Tim scoops Jay into his arms, marveling at how light he is, and kicks the door the rest of the way open. He maneuvers back through the hallway and takes the stairs two at a time. Sunlight momentarily blinds him when he reaches the entryway. Tim spots his car sitting across the parking lot in the distance. He runs with all his might, trying his best to ignore how weak Jay feels in his grip. 

Jay’s head is a heavy weight leaning into Tim’s chest. His face is pale white and twisted in pain. Tim has never felt so terrified in his entire life. Even confronting the Operator is less horrifying than the thought of losing Jay. 

He manages to pull open his car's back door. Ever so carefully, he lowers Jay into the backseat, not even considering the blood that will stain the polyester. Tim is in the driver’s seat and pressing the gas pedal to the floor within seconds. 

He turns on the car’s hazard lights, hoping that will give him enough headway to make it to a hospital in time. He adjusts the rearview mirror so that he can see Jay; it looks like he’s shivering and sweating. His hair is damp and clinging to his forehead. 

The hospital is further into the city. Tim clearly remembers driving past it and briefly admiring the immense structure. It’s roughly twenty minutes away from the school. His gaze flicks to Jay, who’s brows are bunched together in discomfort. He nearly drives into a ditch when his car veers off the road. Tim yanks the steering wheel just in time to straighten the vehicle. 

“Damnit!” He curses and beats his hand against the dash. 

Getting distracted won’t help Jay. Tim watches his speedometer rise; it’s above the set speed limit, but he doesn’t care. He focuses on breathing deep and arriving to the hospital in one piece. 

\--

The emergency room turns chaotic. As soon as he carries Jay’s limp body into the room, a code is called. Nurses pull an empty gurney over to set Jay on and begin recording vitals. A receptionist is talking rapidly over the intercom, but it sounds like gibberish to Tim.

“H-He was shot.” Tim says. His eyes never leave Jay’s face. Is he still breathing?

One of the nurses asks him about any known allergies, but he simply looks at her dumbly. Then, they wheel Jay away and he disappears behind two swinging doors. Tim stands with his feet frozen to the floor, unable to tear his eyes away. A receptionist with bright blue irises and a kind smile eases him into a plastic chair. Her lips are moving, but Tim can’t hear a single word. His head is in his hands; blood rushes in his ears and his heart is beating too fast.

“Sir?” The woman is watching him worriedly. She has a stack of paperwork on her lap. “If you’re able, please fill these out while your friend is in surgery.” She gently grasps his shoulder and squeezes, “It will help him.” 

Tim nods numbly and takes the papers. She hands him a pen, too. He’s scanning the pages, already overwhelmed by the blank spaces on the forms. 

“I-I’m not sure if I know the answers to a lot of these.” He admits. 

“Are there any other family members that we could contact?” She asks.

Tim’s brain is working at a million miles an hour. The truth is that, besides him, Jay has no one. He’s never mentioned his parents or siblings; cousins or distant estranged relatives. In fact, the only friends he ever had all those years ago have since disappeared. Tim thinks back to the past, when they were all in school together. Besides their small college film group, he cannot recall a single moment when Jay had ever hung around other people. He had always stuck close to Alex, who had introduced him to Brian, then Tim and Sarah and Seth. And they were all gone or missing. 

The thought of how immensely lonely that must feel makes Tim’s heart clench. 

“No,” He whispers, voice hoarse. “I’m all he’s got.”

The receptionist nods. “Fill out as much as you can for now.” Her voice is gentle. She turns to stand and walk back to her desk. 

_Patient’s known allergies: ______________________________________________._

Tim stares hard at the blank space, as if the answer will suddenly fill in itself if he concentrates hard enough. He feels like he’s taking a test he never studied for. He runs his hand through his hair and sighs. How much of Jay does he really know?


	2. Chapter 2

The steady rhythm of a heartbeat is the only thing that keeps Tim’s anxiety at bay. The electrocardiogram’s intermittent noise is a reassuring melody in his mind. A single graph moves across the screen in ascending and descending lines that charts every single beat. He sits in a hard-plastic chair directly next to Jay’s hospital bed. He accidentally fell asleep with his head resting on his arms. Tim’s eyelids flutter open. He pulls himself up, wincing when his stiff muscles stretch. The acrid smell of antiseptics makes him wrinkle his nose. The white walls and tiled floor are too pristine and bright. 

Jay is unconscious with his back supported by pillows and a thin white blanket over his body. A nasal cannula is wrapped around his nose and tucked in behind his ears. His frail arm is bruised blue and purple from the brisk placement of an IV line before his surgery. It’s taped down tightly with transparent bandages that are wrinkled around the edges. There’s a bag of saline hanging nearby that feeds the IV, as well as a drip with morphine. A urinary catheter leads from under the blanket to another partially filled bag. 

If Tim was able, he would take Jay’s place in a second. 

He leans forward to gently take Jay’s hand into his own. Tim encases it in both his palms and exhales warm air onto his skin, trying to chase away the chill that has settled on his flesh.  


A doctor had explained the precarious near-death situation that Jay had been through. Alex had fired a single bullet at an angle that cut through the small intestines and exited just below his left kidney. It nearly clipped the abdominal aorta, which would have led to rapid exsanguination in less than five minutes. Jay’s blood pressure dropped twice, and they nearly lost him completely once, but he had survived. After four hours, the surgeon had introduced himself to Tim and stressed how lucky Jay is to be alive.

Jay has a long road of recovery ahead. At least two weeks of bedrest are in order, as well as an extended hospital stay, but, for the time being, Jay is alive and stable.

However, a nagging feeling in the back of his thoughts refuses to let him relax. His shoulders are still tense and his eyes dart around when he hears an unexplainable noise. Every shadow makes him freeze, so he always leaves the lights on inside the room. His restlessness only continues to rise as the hours pass by. Although his head is aching without his usual nicotine fix, Tim cannot bring himself to leave the bedside to smoke a cigarette. Alex is still out there, waiting and watching and certainly more than likely aware that Jay lived. What is stopping him from infiltrating the hospital to finish the job?

Tim sighs and rubs his eyes with his fists. He props his elbows onto the edge of the bed frame, taking care not to disturb Jay’s arm. He won’t admit it aloud, but he is beyond afraid. Alex has proved that he is prepared to go as far as committing murder to end this. They had watched Alex bludgeon a stranger on camera in the drainage tunnel at Rosswood. Back then, it felt more surreal to be an observer, rather than a direct victim. 

For the very first time in the entirety of his life, Tim prays. If not for his own sake, then for Jay’s at least. 

An hour later, a nurse politely asks him to leave.

“Visiting hours end at six o’clock.” She explains. 

Tim opens his mouth to argue and closes it again. Of course, they can’t allow him to stay next to Jay the entire time. It would be useless to debate about it. He nods and tries to ignore the tension in his chest. He stands and grabs his coat, but his gaze is locked on Jay’s face. He’s still pale and motionless; vulnerable.

“You can come back at nine in the morning, okay?” The nurse adds, her voice soft and reassuring. 

Tim doesn’t trust himself to speak, so he doesn’t. He follows the nurse out of the intensive care unit. When he finally reemerges into the outside world, he feels out of place and dazed. It’s as if he’s entered an entirely new place. Cars are idling on the highway in rush hour traffic; the trees are dancing in an unusually warm breeze as a gathering storm rumbles overhead. There are people sitting at picnic tables and chatting among each other; some are employees enjoying their lunch, others are an assortment of visitors and patients. 

It’s too normal, he decides. 

He glances at the incoming storm with unease. Instead of lingering in the open, Tim shakes his head and digs his car keys out of his pocket. There’s a hotel a block away that he may be able to get a room in. God knows that he probably won’t get any sleep though.


	3. Chapter 3

Jay awakens in darkness. It seems to take an eternity to pry open his leaden eyes. His mind feels too groggy and slow, like his thoughts are traversing through syrup to form a coherent sentence. His vision is a blurry kaleidoscope of meaningless shapes and bleak colors. There’s a dull ache in his side and a prickling sensation in his upper arm. 

The memories try to rush back into his brain all at once. They’re equivalent to old film reels flickering behind his eyelids too quickly for him to grasp. His understanding is a bizarre uphill battle for clarity. The rest of it is frustratingly blank. It’s as if he’s staring at the empty space of a missing puzzle piece. He can only recall bits and pieces of what happened. 

He had wandered through Benedict hall, searching for… something. There was a jarring noise that had hurt his ears, followed by a profound sensation of agony. Everything had went dark.

A bright light temporarily illuminates the room. Thunder shakes the foundation of the building and reverberates through the walls. Jay’s eyes widen in alarm and he forces himself up onto his elbows. An onslaught on rain beats against the window nearby, effectively swallowing the silence and replacing it with the sound of a torrential storm that’s growing stronger by the second. The wind is whistling as it tears and thrashes at the hospital. A vision of a monstrous entity reaching for him from the darkness makes his stomach turn.

Jay is trembling under the blankets when it finally comes back to him. 

Alex had tried to kill him. 

His hands are shaking with rising anxiety. He grips the blanket in his fists. Despite the pain lancing through his abdomen, Jay manages to lift himself into a sitting position. The effort makes the entire room seem to tilt on its axis, nearly causing him to faint from the mere exertion of forcing his body to move so little. Sweat is beading on his brow; he pauses to focus on moving air in and out of his lungs. He feels entirely too weak and exhausted to be conscious. 

The room is empty; he is entirely alone. Tim automatically rises to the forefront of his thoughts. The absence of his presence makes Jay uneasy. It feels like he’s misplaced a crucial part of himself. He wonders if the stubborn, plaid-wearing smoker has left him behind. Jay’s heart seems to sink to his toes. The anticipation of facing everything on his own again is beyond terrifying. Would Tim really do that to him? Would it be unreasonable, considering how Jay had tried to attack him with a knife before? 

If he could rewind time, he would wipe that entire thing from their memories. Jay had been influenced by the Operator; he realizes that now. His damning detour to the forest had given that monster the perfect opportunity to take control of another proxy. He had fallen right into its hands. The rest of the time between then and the present is a staggering blur of disjointed images, but it’s quickly coming back to him. It’s like his consciousness decided to take a back seat and allow something else to pilot his body. Although he wasn’t present mentally, his eyes had acted as his physical camera and recorded everything. Now his memory of it all is akin to a broken tape. 

Suddenly, a fluorescent light in the hallway opposite of his room begins to flicker. Each flash threatens to entrench the entire wing into darkness. Jay sucks in his breath when it goes out. The electrocardiogram ceases to beep as the screen goes dark. The only sound is the erratic beat of his heart in his chest. It’s far too loud in the abrupt quietness that’s filled the room. Another beam of lightening brightens the hospital, followed by a single clap of thunder that seems to shake the entire sky. 

Less than ten seconds pass when the hospital’s backup generator finally kicks on, effectively relighting the hallways once again. He can hear an uproar as nurses and doctors alike scramble into action to check on their inpatients. But Jay is no longer alone. There is someone else silhouetted in the entryway of the room. His lips are downturned, and he has a wicked gleam in his eyes. 

Alex Kralie slinks toward his bed with all the confidence of a predator that has finally cornered its intended prey. He’s still dressed in wrinkly drifter clothes that are smeared with dirt. There’s a hint of barely contained rage behind the coy smile that widens his cheeks. It’s far removed from the gentle nature that the real Alex used to have. 

Jay is frozen to the mattress, but every single nerve in his body is screaming at him to get away. He blinks hard, hoping against hope that Alex is the product of a hallucination or a nightmare or _something_. He presses himself into the pillow that is cushioning his back, until he can feel the head of the bed grinding painfully into his shoulder blades. Alex merely runs his hand along the bedrail, coming ever so closer. Jay can see the stubble that’s grown on his upper lip. 

“It’s been a long time, Jay.” Alex’s voice is hard and devoid of emotion. Another flash of lightening makes his glasses gleam in the dark. 

“Come to finish the job?” Jay spits, his anger overwhelming his fear.

Alex merely hums in reply, but his face has fallen in disappointment. “Unfortunately, no. Tim ruined that plan.” He sighs deeply, like the prospect of killing Jay would have been satisfying. 

Tim’s name causes a tiny spark of hope to ignite inside him. Had Tim saved him? 

He pushes that aside to assess later. “Then what do you want?” 

Alex meets his eyes for the first time since he arrived. “We have other plans for you.” 

Jay’s blood runs cold. He tries to bolt upright and escape – tubes and IVs be damned – but Alex has already grabbed his wrist in a vice grip. His dirty fingernails dig into Jay’s skin until the flesh begins to break. Jay can only writhe and cry out in pain. A fuzzy drape seems to envelope his brain. He’s struggling weakly, distantly aware of an inferno burning in his abdomen. Something warm and wet is spreading across his mid-section. 

He falls back into the bed, completely drained. Alex doesn’t loosen his hold on Jay’s arm. His consciousness is fading fast. There’s a sharp ringing in his ears that’s only getting louder and louder. His thoughts and feelings are scrambling for purchase as his brain seems to boil. Jay cannot muster the energy to be scared anymore. All he can think about is Tim, and how much he desperately wishes he was here. 

Then, Jay’s awareness fades as a sensation of weightlessness comes over him.


End file.
